


Drowning in Your Meltdowns, and Other Seaworthy Tales

by Draikinator



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Siblings, Suicide mention, pre-game
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 14:13:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,189
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8017141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Draikinator/pseuds/Draikinator
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A few drabbles of Asriel and Chara as siblings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Drowning in Your Meltdowns, and Other Seaworthy Tales

Asriel and chara are sitting in their room on a thursday night. One of them has never seen the sun, but if they could have, they would have watched it set hours ago.

Chara holds a flashlight between their knees, crush up against their chest, hands laced together in front of the light.

“Look,” they say, “it’s you!” They make the goat their hand’s shadow have formed open its mouth. Asriel frowns.

“Is not!”

“Do me next.”

Asriel pauses, frowns, looks at his hands.

“Don’t make me wait all night,” Chara says. They try to make it sound impatient, but it mostly just sounds nervous, embarrassed.

Asriel holds his hands together to make a heart in front of the light, “You!”

Chara is silent.

They turn off the light and crawl into bed despite Asriel’s groans of protest that he’s not tired yet.

* * *

Asriel and Chara are running through the woods, the scrubby trees growing wild from the cave rocks, dark and twisted but alive despite everything.

They both hit a tree with one hand hard, panting.

“I won!” Asriel says, ears perking on his head. Chara crinkles their nose.

“No! It was a tie.”

“Fine then,” Asriel says smugly, grinning with his sharp teeth, “best out of five?”

Chara takes off first even though Asriel yells “hey!” And they both go running back to their starting point. Asriel’s just passed Chara, his feet clawed and more suited to running than Chara’s tiny human ones, protected in shoes like all delicate human pieces, when Chara trips over a root and slams face first into the stone floor.

Asriel skids to a halt and scampers back, “Oh no oh no oh no,” he says, scrambling to flip Chara onto their back, “Chara! Chara, please wake up!!” Chara fails to stir for a moment, then sputters back to life with a shaking cough and a jerk.

“Shit,” Chara says, and Asriel’s ears lay flat and his nose twitches, “Azzy I just broke my nothe, i can swear.” Chara says, and Azzy makes a little noise that Chara isnt sure is in agreement or denial.

“Is it really broken?” Asriel asks, and Chara sits up, holding their face in their hand. When they look back up their face and palm are covered in blood. Asriel gasps and covers his muzzle.

“Chara!” He says, eyes watering. Chara gives him a weary look.

“It’s not that big a deal,” they say, wiping their nose on their sleeve with a serious wince, before pushing themselves to their feet, “It’s fine.”

“Let’s go back to Mom-” Asriel says, scooting forward to steady his sibling when chara wavers woozily, “She can make it better.”

“Okay,” Chara says, and leans on him in a way they want to pretend is casual, but when they pass the tree they were racing to, they slap it, leaving a smudgy red hand print on the bark.

* * *

 

“You can see the sky through here!” Asriel laughs, raising both hands towards the crack in the ceiling above the throne room. Its warm on his pawpads.

Chara stares silently up at it. The barrier’s shimmering obscures the colour, making the whole thing s flickering sun-gold. They wonder if Asriel thinks the sky is yellow.

“What colour do you think the sky is, Asriel?”

“Huh?” Asriel pauses, draws his hands back to himself and rubs his snout throughtfully, “Not yellow, I guess?”

“Nope.”

“Hmm… Is it red?”

“Sometimes,” Chara says, climbing into their father’s chair. “Sometimes not.”

“What do you mean sometimes not? It changes colour?” Asriel says, bounding over to climb into his mother’s.

“Sometimes its blue, or black, or pink or orange or red. Sometimes, actually, it is yellow.”

“Hey!” Asriel snorts.

“But sometimes it’s grey,” Chara continues, undettered, suddenly solemn, “Sometimes itd black and grey and it cracks open and spills out everything on us.”

“It does…?”

“Do you know what lightning is, Azzy?”

“No.”

“Mo- someone used to tell me it was punishment. A bolt of pure hatred from the dky that could kill you.”

“That sounds terrible!”

“She said it only hit bad people, though. Only people that deserve it.”

“Gosh, Chara, I don’t… I don’t know if anyone deserves that.”

Chara is silent.

* * *

 “Is today really your birthday?” Asriel asks, sticking a forkful of cake into his mouth.

“Of course,” Chara scoffs, picking apart a sugar decoration.

“Its just s weird coincidence that this is also the anniversary of the day you fell.”

Chara’s hands still for a moment, and they look at him, and shrug, and pop the decoration in their mouth thoughtfully.

“Do you ever wonder why I climbed Mt Ebott?”

Asriel’s ears perk up and he cocks his head to the side, “No. Why?”

Chara gives him a long, hard look.

“What?? I can take it, Chara! You can tell me anything!” Asriel asserts, setting his cake to the side.

“I was trying to kill myself, Asriel.” Chara says, flatly, but their eyes are scanning his face for a reaction.

“Oh,” Asriel says, shrinking. “Oh.”

Chara folds their legs and stabs their slice of their mother’s cake with a fork, “as far as I’m concerned, I didn’t exist until I fell. Nothing from before then happened because it doesn’t matter. Today matters. You matter.” They cast their gaze to their lap, “I matter.”

“…Okay,” Asriel says, scooting closer, picking his cake back up. “Happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” Chara says, closing their eyes as they taste a bite, “Don’t tell mom.”

“I won’t.”

 

* * *

Asriel pours a plastic kettle of water into a chipped blue cup and Chara sighs, leaning on the foot high table.

“This is dumb.”

“No it’s not!” Asriel says indignantly, “I’ve seen it on video. Humans do tea time all the time.”

“Who cares what humans do,” Chara scoffs, and leans forward, letting their chin rest on the table. Asriel plucks the topper off of a gravy trough, revealing a neat stack of chocolate squares within.

“One lump, or two?”

“Changed my mind,” Chara says, grabbing the gravy boat, which makes Asriel smirk, “tea is cool.”

* * *

You don’t understand whats coming out of you.  
  
Its pouring from your chest like water but not quite- its bright red and you don’t know what that means. Or maybe you do? Somewhere, somewhere, deep within your Soul you know what it is and what its called but you’re desperate and you can’t find the words.

“Get up,” your mouth says, and you try to, the earth soft beneath your claws. You lean on dad’s throne armrest and try to stand on quivering legs. “You have to get up. You’re not allowed to die here.”

You listen to the words that aren’t yours snd you try, you try to get up. You slip and fall, gasping for air. Its too late. Its too late.

“You’re not going to die here,” your voice says, “I won’t let you. This wasn’t the plan.”

Your arms don’t move but they’re trying without you.

“Get up, get up, you have to get up.”

The sun shimmers white-gold through the barrier. It’s warm on your face.

The sky was definitely blue. You liked it.

 


End file.
